Nine Mercenaries In Search of An Exit
by mumbling mice
Summary: Nine strangers find themselves trapped in an empty room. They contemplate why they are there and how to get out. Based on the Twilight Zone episode 'Five Characters in Search of An Exit'.


They were never quite aware of when exactly a new one turned up. It was no use being vigilant because there was no set time that they arrived (there was, in fact, no time at all) and staring out at the same gray space for a long time could get very boring, especially when there were so many other more interesting gray spaces to stare at instead.

It seemed as though the newcomers just quietly slipped in amongst them when all their backs were turned. The quieter ones would simply wait until they were noticed, while the more boisterous ones made sure to get everyone's attention.

They all asked the same question.

"Where am I?" Feeling as though he had just awoken from a long sleep, the Demoman looked up at the heads bowed over him, and then scratched his own. They were ugly faces, all strangers—a bizarre, motley crew all staring down at him. He wasn't sure who they were or why they were all together, but he was quite sure they weren't people he would have chosen to be with. He furrowed his eyebrows at his own thought.

"Funny, ain't it?" said an American voice with a stout chuckle. The man who spoke was the shortest of them all, his eyes obscured by coal black goggles—maybe he was a hypocrite, what with his own eyepatch, but the Demoman wasn't sure how he felt about a man who hid his eyes. "Seems like they always ask the same question."

"Speak for yourself!" Another American crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were hidden as well, but thanks to a helmet that the Demoman suspected he wasn't quite wearing correctly. "I know exactly where we are! We're in a—"

"—Communist prison cell." The largest of them finished his sentence with an exasperated Russian accent. "We know. You have told us many, many times, Soldier."

The other man, the Soldier, pointed an accusing finger at his perceived challenger. "Don't you sass me, Pinko! We all know you're in cahoots with them!"

Smirking on his right side, the youngest of them leaned in over the Demoman's shoulder and whispered, "By 'we' he just means all his imaginary friends. Guy's out of his mind."

His eye wide, the Demoman gave him a slow nod, and then turned back to the rest of the group. "So, er… if this ain't a 'communist prison cell', than what is it?"

One of the other men opened his mouth to speak, but the young one who'd whispered to him suddenly gave a loud whoop. The Demoman snapped his head to the side and cocked an eyebrow as the boy tried to suppress his giggles. "Sorry, man, I just—you just—you kinda talk funny for a, you know—"

The person next to him, fully suited in a flame retardant suit and utterly unidentifiable, gave the boy a sharp jab in the ribs to shut him up, and put their hands on their hips as they gave what would have been a scolding if their mask hadn't muffled it beyond hearing. Although appreciative of their effort, the Demoman couldn't help but find this fully enigmatic fellow ten times more unsettling than the others.

"Well, we don't rightly now." The American in the hardhat and goggles spoke up again, giving him a vague shrug. It occurred to the Demoman that the others considered this man something like leader, or a voice of reason, as they nodded along to his sentiment. "We all ended up here out of the blue, just as confused as you are."

He offered his hand, and the Demoman took it. When he stood, the man looked up with a grin and shook their still clasped hands. "You can call me Engineer."

"I'm Demoman." It occurred to him that these weren't normal names. He wasn't sure who assigned them or why, but considering that he himself dabbled in explosives, they may be indicative towards some kind of roles.

Stretching his back, he took a look around their surroundings. The room was vast, but perhaps it only seemed that way because of how bare it was. It was almost dizzying—there weren't any windows, not even a door. The only thing that broke the monotony was a chalkboard, similarly chrome. Resting on its thin shelf was a gray ruler, an eraser, and a piece of chalk.

The Demoman raised his hand to his head again, digging his fingernails past his wool cap to scratch at his scalp. "There's… hell. There's nothing in here. How do we eat? And drink? Or sleep? Or—or Christ, take a bloody _piss_?"

"We don't need to." Another new accent: this time, German. Dressed in crisp white doctor's coat, his hands clasped behind his back, a man with spectacles and a sharp hairline stepped forward. "Well—that is to say—_most_ of us don't need to—" He shot a suspicious glance to the tallest of the men, hovering on his own in the back. He responded by tipping his hat with a strange little grin. "But none of us actually need to."

A sudden panic gripped his chest. "We—we can't drink?" For a moment he wasn't even sure where his panic was coming from. Why did he care so much? Then, as if they had been quickly injected into a vein, memories of alcohol flooded his mind, spreading warmth through his body with their saturated and sense-dulling comfort.

Then, almost as soon as the memories appeared, something heavy weighed down his hand. He looked down to find he was holding a tinted bottle, the top open and wafting pungency that enticed like perfume. He quickly took a swig. "Christ," he sighed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Dunno where that even bloody came from."

"Is like sanvich." The big man procured a sandwich from behind his back. The Demoman wasn't sure why he was so surprised when he'd just been told what it was. "Comes from nothing. Still taste good. Nothing is good chef, da?" he added with a chuckle.

The Demoman frowned down at it. If they were all trapped in here with no food, why wasn't everyone trying to rip the giant apart to get at it? He was big, certainly, but if they all ganged up…

Then he realized, as he looked down at it, that even he wasn't hungry. Perhaps the doctor was right.

"We… we can't stay in here forever," he murmured, turning and taking another swig. "There's got to be some way out, some way—"

"There isn't." The stench of cigarette smoke tickled his nostrils. The man who strolled beside the Demoman was different from the others, with thin, gloved hands and a suit that must have been worth more than the rest of their clothing combined. He, too, kept his features obscured, with a balaclava; but the Demoman could see his eyes, and they were tired. "I have scoured every inch of this room. There is no way out."

His heart sank. "Right." He nodded, looking at his boots. "Well… how long have you lads been here, then?"

The same man gave a bored shrug. "An hour. A year. A century. Who knows what time is anymore."

He raised his hand to pluck his cigarette from his lips, but the Demoman stopped his arm with a swift snatch when he saw a wristwatch. "But you've got a bloody watch!"

Disgusted that someone would dare to touch him, the man wrenched his arm away and brushed at it as if the Demoman had left some kind of residue. "So does Sniper. It doesn't matter. They don't work. "

The lanky man, who the Demoman now knew as the Sniper, gave a short nod. "It's always half past two. Always."

"Exactly!" The Soldier stormed over, his fist tightened passionately. "And you ladies haven't even realized it yet! It's obviously communist technology! All these stopped clocks, no food, no windows, no sleep—they're trying to drain our sanity!"

"It certainly worked for you." The man blew out a stream of smoke and turned his back, pensive a moment. "If you ask me, we're all in Hell."

The giant man crossed his arms, casting the other a skeptical glare. "Hell is made-up place, for babies," he said quietly. "I am surprise you of all people are believing in it, Spy."

"I didn't always." The Spy brought the cigarette to his lips once more. "But you give a better explanation, Heavy." When the Soldier opened his mouth, he quickly added, "That _doesn't_ have to do with communists."

The Demoman absorbed his words. He'd never been too religious, but he hadn't exactly called himself an atheist, either. The very thought, that this was Hell, gave him a chill to the bone… but it made sense. "Maybe you're right."

"No." The youngest man began to nervously shake his head, having his hands in front of himself as if trying to waft away the very idea. "No, no—no, that ain't it, we can't be! Maybe—maybe we're in a rocket ship to—to Mars!"

"Yeah? And for what, Scout?" the Sniper scoffed. "For some little green men to serve _man_ on the menu, for a change? That's bloody stupid."

"You're stupid!" the Scout shouted. "I'm sorry if I ain't exactly hooked on the idea of us being DAMNED, okay? Like—jeez—it doesn't even make any freakin' sense! It doesn't look anything LIKE Hell!"

"Little man has been to Hell?" The Heavy cocked an eyebrow.

"Stuff it, lardass, you know what I mean! It—it ain't like what they tell you in church! Hell is fire and brimstone and…" He gave a resigned sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Aw, screw it. Who the hell knows. But if it is Hell, I just don't get why _I'd_ be here."

The Demoman gave him a long, hard look with his single eye. "Haven't you ever sinned, lad?" he asked. His own rugged tone surprised him.

The Scout turned stark white, as if he had been asked the question by God himself. He swallowed and glanced to his side. "Uh… I mean—yeah, of course, but—but I haven't done nothin' bad enough to end up in Hell!"

"I have." They turned to see the doctor pushing his spectacles up his nose. "I killed a man. Several men." His tone was disturbingly casual. Speaking of it didn't even seem to faze him.

The Demoman's jaw fell slightly. "You're a doctor," he whispered, his nostrils flared.

"I used to be." He gave a disinterested shrug, and then looked up with a simple smile. "Now I'm just a Medic."

"I've killed as well," the Spy added. "And I can tell by your faces that Medic and I aren't the only ones."

The room was painfully quiet, save for a repetitive clicking sound. The person in the flame retardant suit had grown bored of their conversation, and was sitting cross-legged away from them, flicking a lighter in their lap.

The Scout swallowed. "I… I didn't mean to. It wasn't my fault, okay?"

"_What_ wasn't your fault?" the Demoman demanded. He took another swig, feeling the twinge of a stress headache. Had that been why he started drinking to begin with? He wasn't even sure.

"I—We—" The Scout stuttered nervously and removed his hat, scrunching it between his hands. "I had a twin brother. We used to like to race and junk, especially on our way home from school. We were always competin' and stuff, but it—it wasn't meant in a bad way, just for fun. We were kids, you know? Well—jeez—" He swallowed, his eyebrows knotting. "One day I challenged him to a race when it was raining real hard. He told me he didn't, he was scared, but I called him chicken so he gave in. We raced down the street, and a truck came around the corner and—" His voice faltered, and he looked around at them with panicked eyes. "It—it wasn't my fault! I was ten, how the Hell was I supposed to know?" His breath quickened. "Stop looking at me like that! I ain't like the rest of you! Mine was an accident! You all killed on purpose!"

A strange and uncontrollable memory suddenly pierced the Demoman's mind. A serpentine beast, slicing through the water, it's back glistening. It taunted him, knowing he was watching, and lifted its face to blink a sleek black eye. Terror and excitement filled his stomach like heavy cake. He looked down and saw the chubby, not-yet-calloused hand of a child clutching a stick of dynamite longer than his calf. In his other hand was a lit match.

He blinked his single eye, reeling from the bizarre flashback, and tried ease back into the uproar. He suddenly felt sick and irritable and unsure of why. Bitterly, he took another swig from his bottle of scrumpy.

"Sometimes…" The Engineer's voice quavered slightly. "Sometimes when people kill on purpose, they do it 'cause they ain't got any other choice. Or at least, they thought they didn't at the time." His jaw tightening, he looked at his boots with balled-up fists. "I never believed in God because it just ain't logical to me. But part of me hopes there isn't, just because I don't want to imagine anything doing something like this on purpose. Makin' you… makin' you make rotten choices and then throwing you in Hell… Christ!"

With the pent up rage that had been shaking inside him as he spoke, he suddenly snatched his helmet off and smashed it on the floor before stalking away. After a moment of deliberation, the Sniper gingerly cut through their quiet crowd to crouch down and pick it up, pointedly averting his gaze as the rest of them watched. Clutching the helmet, he walked over to the Engineer's side, and they stood together, mute.

"Is true," the Heavy added thickly, his deep voice cracking their dry silence like lava cutting through a mountainside. "I grew up in gulag with my mother and sisters. Without my father, I had to be man of house. My mother and sister were strong women, but sick men would try to hurt them anyway." He swallowed and continued stoically, "One day, a rat of a man succeeded, and hurt my smallest sister. I had to make example of him."

It wasn't difficult for a story like that to cut deep into the hearts of the other men, but the Medic appeared unfazed, and almost indignant. "The reasoning behind what we've done clearly doesn't make a difference," he scoffed. "The only people you're trying to validate your murders to are yourselves."

He lit the stick of dynamite. It fizzed softly as he walked forward, towards the water's edge. His heartbeat was throbbing like a drum in his ears. The beast reared in the water, extending its sleek neck to full height. With a scream, he fell back, the dynamite slipping from his grasp. The string slowly disappearing, it landed right by two pairs of feet.

He tasted their blood on his lips.

"Sounds like you don't have anything to regret, Doc," the Demoman muttered, swallowing the memory back. He took another swig from the bottle to wash it down. "Those of us that do have a harder time lettin' go."

"I killed in the name of science!" the Medic barked in defense, balling his fists as he started towards the Demoman. "When you have to take lives for the bettering of others, regret is fruitless! You learn nothing from regret. You accomplish nothing from regret. I didn't have _time_ for regret." Under the quiet squint of the Demoman's eye, he crumbled. Looking at his feet, the Medic pushed his spectacles up his nose and added in a mumble, "All I regret is that nothing I did was able to save her."

The Demoman turned away from him with a guttural scoff. "Ach." He needed another mouthful of scrumpy. "What a motley crew we are, eh?" He glanced over to the quietest member of their group, who was tapping on the wall with a gloved finger as if trying to get the attention of an animal at the zoo. He looked away, shaking his head. "Just a bunch of fools with demons."

"Medic is right," the Spy said quietly, taking another cigarette from his case. "There's no point in dwelling on what we've done—"

"But what if that's the whole bleedin' point?" The Demoman spun on his heel to face the Spy. "What if that's why we're here? Maybe it's not Hell. Maybe it's Limbo."

The Spy opened his mouth to argue back, but was interrupted by a shout from across the room.

"Dammit, Pyro!" That last person, now the Pyro, had ceased sitting beside the wall, and instead had migrated towards the Engineer to snatch his remote control from his tool belt.

"That ain't a gosh darn toy, Pyro!" the Engineer shouted, chasing after him as the Pyro quickly ran back to where they had been sitting. "What are you…?" His frustration melted into confusion as the Pyro sat below him, gesturing excitedly to the wall and indicating towards a specific button on his remote.

The other men wandered over curiously, necks craned.

"Well, I'll be…" the Engineer muttered, aiming the remote towards the wall and pushing the button. "The teleporter exit just clips right through." He looked up and around at the blank faces hovering over him. "Don't y'all know what this means? We… this… this might be our way out."

The moment it sank in, that they may finally be able to leave, a sudden uproar rang through the empty room.

"So build it, hardhat, what are you waiting for?!"

"What the hell are you waiting for, Private? Let's go!"

"I'll build the damn thing myself if you don't—"

"Oh, shut up, you lot!" the Sniper shouted over them, pushing through to step in front of the Engineer. Having never heard the man say more than five words at a volume louder than a grumble, the rest of them grew quiet, if only in sheer surprise. "Let the man breath, for Christ's sake."

They stepped back, and the Engineer promptly went to work.

It was certainly a strange device—he simply had to press a button, and from then they heard the muffled sound of gears flexing. "It's built on its own," he explained, laying down the skeleton of another at their feet. The materials seemed to come from thin air, not unlike the bottle and the sandwich. He crouched down to coax it to life faster, hitting it this way and that with his wrench. The Demoman didn't entirely recall construction to work like that, but it seemed to be working, so he wasn't about to question it.

"We do have a problem, though," the Texan grunted as the teleporter spun to life. He stood, placing his fists on his hips. "Teleporters are a one-way street. Whoever goes in… he ain't comin' back. 'Least not through this."

"I'll go." The volunteer had tumbled from his lips before he even realized what he was saying. The Demoman coughed into his fist, and then repeated, "I'll go."

The Engineer nodded solemnly, and gave him a supportive clap on the shoulder as he walked forward. "Since we heard the teleporter getting built, you may be able to knock or speak to us. So try that. Tell us what you see. We'll follow you if the coast is clear."

His boots barely kissing the edge of the spinning teleporter, the Demoman took another swig for a dose of liquid courage, then tossed the bottle aside with a wet shatter. He wiped his bottom lip, and he suddenly felt all-too aware of the way his cotton sleeve felt when rubbed against his mouth.

He closed his eyes, and stepped on to the teleporter. It felt like a serpentine beast wrapping itself around his ankles, taunting him with memories of death. He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to express some doubts, but in a flash, he was gone.

You are sitting at your desk, at your computer. You were idly browsing the internet, but grew bored, and decided to minimize the window and put on some music. However, when you go to your desktop, you notice a new folder, unnamed. Curious, you open it.

Inside are the following files:

teleporter_

demoman_

You furrow your eyebrows, not quite sure how this folder got here. You tried to reinstall that old game recently, but just hadn't gotten around to playing it.

As you delete the folder, you begin to consider just uninstalling it again. Sure, you used to love it, but you needed make room for new games, new programs, things you'd actually use. This game used to be your favorite, but you've moved on.

You had no idea they'd been waiting for you.


End file.
